How much does a car really cost?

Surprisingly fuel, rego and repairs are not what hurt your hip pocket.

14 September 2010Richard Blackburn

How much does a car really cost?

Ask someone how much it costs them to run their vehicle and the first thing they'll think of is the weekly petrol bill. After all, that is the one expense they have to dip into their pocket for every week.

But petrol bills are only one part of the car ownership equation. In fact, your fuel bill usually accounts for just 20 per cent of your totaloperating costs, depending on the car you drive.

Every year you have to pay registration and insurance, get the car serviced and pay for consumables such as oil, filters and tyres, not to mention any repair bills.

As with the weekly petrol bill, these expenses spring to mind fairly readily because they chew up cash we invariably don't have.

But as with the fuel bills, these only add up to about 20 per cent of the total cost of owning a car.

By far the biggest cost is depreciation. The old story of your car dropping thousands of dollars in value when you drive it off the showroom floor is unfortunately pretty accurate. Over a five-year ownership period, depreciation on your average Commodore orFalcon can make up nearly half your totalcosts.

The last expense is what the motoring groups call "opportunity cost". It's a fairly complicated concept but it basically takes into account the interest you could have made from the money you've lost on your car through depreciation. In some cases it can make up as much as 15 per cent of your total costs.

But wait, there's more. The common calculations about ownership costs do not take into account the cost of interest on any loan you may have taken out to buy the car.

When you add up all the costs of owning a car, public transport can look pretty tempting.

According to the NRMA, the average large car costs about $275 a week to maintain over a five-year period, assuming you drive about 15,000 kilometres a year.

A top-of-the-range Nissan Patrol will set you back about $400.

In contrast, a Hyundai Getz will cost about $130 a week.

Little wonder, then, that even with fuel prices on the wane, buyers are increasingly switching to smaller cars if they can.

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The size of your tyre is located on the sidewall of your tyre.It will be similar to the sample below.